LABOR FAMILY NEWS
Provided from CFT
Judge’s final “Vergara” ruling an attack on teachers
Education unions to appeal
LOS ANGELES — The final decision rendered by Los Angeles Superior Court judge Rolf Treu today in the Vergara v. California case offered no new reasoning or information as to how stripping teachers of their workplace professional rights will help students gain a better education. In rolling back the protections that allow teachers to educate their students and advocate for them without fear of arbitrary and capricious retaliation, the judge has set back a century of well-reasoned law.
“This decision fails to recognize the benefits to society provided by the challenged statutes, including the ability to recruit and retain educators, promoting teaching as a life-long career, the stability they bring to district employment decisions in layoff and other situations, and the basic due process they provide that allows teachers to speak up on behalf of their students,” said CTA President Dean E. Vogel. “No link was shown between these statutes and the hiring or retention of ineffective teachers, or in the assignment of ineffective teachers to particular schools. On the contrary, the evidence showed that school districts have tremendous latitude in hiring and in assignment, and that in fact, underperforming teachers are remediated or removed from their positions frequently using the existing statutes. Simply put, the judge has ruled on faulty logic.”
Both educator unions in California were interveners in the case.
“In ignoring all the real problems of public education, this is simply an anti-union attack masquerading as a civil rights issue,” said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers. “The central problems we face each day in the classroom are inadequate funding, poverty, lack of decent jobs in the communities surrounding our schools, and high turnover among younger teachers due to the pressures of those problems—none of which is addressed by the ruling in this case. This decision will only reinforce the perception among idealistic young people that well-funded enemies of public education are undermining respect and support for teachers. This will make it harder to attract and retain young teachers.”
The California Federation of Teachers and the California Teachers Association anticipate filing an appeal.
More information on the case as well as background can be found here:
http://cft.org/key-issues/quality-education/vergara-lawsuit.html
http://www.cta.org/en/Issues-and-Action/Ongoing-Issues/Vergara-Trial1.aspx
The 325,000-member CTA is affiliated with the 3.2 million-member National Education Association. The California Federation of Teachers is the statewide affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, and represents faculty and school employees in public and private schools and colleges, from early childhood through higher education.
CFT President Joshua Pechthalt's opinion editorial on AB 1942 and the need for greater transparency in the community college accreditation agency appeared in today's Sacramento Bee. Please share widely.
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/08/27/6656355_viewpoints-more-transparency-required.html
Viewpoints: More transparency required at community college accrediting agency
By Joshua Pechthalt
Special to The Bee
Published: Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2014 - 12:00 am
A bipartisan, unanimous vote in the Legislature doesn’t happen every day. So it’s worth noting that Assembly Bill 1942, for fair community college accreditation practices, recently passed 36-0 in the Senate and 74-0 in the Assembly.
East Bay Assemblyman Rob Bonta’s bill is on the governor’s desk. The bill has fewer requirements for its target – the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges – than an earlier version. Nevertheless, it is a step in the right direction for more transparency in the notoriously secretive agency, and signals that previously hands-off legislators understand that they need to monitor the commission more closely.
Over the past year, the formerly obscure private agency – in charge of accrediting the state’s 112 community colleges – has been under public scrutiny following its unprecedented and unwarranted closure order for City College of San Francisco. Its justifications related to administrative, governance and fiscal oversight issues. City College’s quality of education was never questioned.
Many local, state and federal elected officials have weighed in. Faculty, students, community groups and business leaders are angry that the central job training engine of the Bay Area – responsible for generating more than $300 million a year in economic activity and providing educational access for more than 1 in 10 San Franciscans – is facing closure.
Although community college faculty and administrators throughout the state have complained for years about the commission’s “my way or the highway” dictates, it was able to threaten harsh sanctions, which invariably resulted in plunging student enrollment, to keep them quiet. It was only when City College faculty openly challenged their unjust treatment that the commission’s overreaching behavior came to light.
Last year, the City College faculty union and its parent organization, the California Federation of Teachers, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, alleging conflicts of interest, failure to follow accepted accrediting rules and disparate treatment of different colleges.
The Department of Education responded with a letter agreeing with large parts of the faculty complaint and warning the commission to fix its problems. The San Francisco city attorney filed a lawsuit, saying political bias, not valid educational issues, motivated the closure order. A Superior Court judge granted an injunction to keep the college open pending trial in October. The commission has admitted in a court filing that its evaluation team unanimously recommended probation, not closure.
U.S. Reps. Jackie Speier, Anna Eshoo and Nancy Pelosi called for the commission to reverse its decision and preserve the path to higher education for 80,000 low-income students. The State Auditor’s Office criticized the agency for failing to include enough faculty on visiting teams; sanctioning colleges at rates seven times higher than similar regional agencies; and applying inconsistent standards from college to college. It found the agency to be highly consistent in only one regard – its lack of transparency. And the auditor suggested the Legislature examine the possibility of establishing an alternative agency to end the commission’s monopoly power.
AB 1942 will not fix everything that is wrong with California accreditation practices. It merely says that the commission must give biannual reports to the Legislature about policy changes that may affect a college, and must report to the appropriate subcommittee whenever issuing a decision affecting a college’s accreditation status.
This modest outcome underscores the importance of pushing forward with other efforts. With any luck, the city attorney’s suit will conclude with City College open and accredited. Its elected board of trustees, replaced during the crisis by an unaccountable “supertrustee,” should be restored to office.
The governor should sign AB 1942. Next year, California’s elected officials can build on this beginning to reform community college accreditation practices so that schools can concentrate less on responding to the commission’s destructive dictates and more on the mission of educating the people of California.
Joshua Pechthalt is president of the California Federation of Teachers.
Labor Day Love
Provided by AFL/CIO Publication:
As we go into the long weekend, let’s take a moment to remember how hard our parents and grandparents fought to get this day of relaxation and what we can do to ensure our kids and grandkids will be picnicking the first Monday of every September too.
To set your holiday off right we’ve put together a little toolkit to help make your weekend as labor-friendly as possible.
Be sure to check out the Labor’s Edge blog post by California Labor Federation’s leader, Art Pulaski and join us at an event in your area and tweet out why Labor Day is so important to you and our future.
Follow us on Twitter @CaliforniaLabor for all the fun Labor Day updates. Join the Twitter conversation with these sample tweets and hashtags below.
Hashtags:
#WorkersTogether
#FaceOfLabor
#LaborDay
Sample Tweets (character count with spaces next to each):
- #LaborDay is about working people standing together for a seat at the table. #WorkersTogether (94)
- W/help from #unions, our grandparents built the middle class brick by brick. Let’s get back 2 work by investing in CA again. #LaborDay (134)
- End tax breaks for big corporate takers & billionaires who ship our jobs overseas. Time to invest in CA workers again. #LaborDay (129)
- No more fighting over crumbs as fat-cat CEOs and billionaires take the whole pie. #WorkersTogether #LaborDay (109)
- Thank you to the Firefighters who risk their lives protecting our families. #FaceOfLabor #LaborDay (99)
- Thank you to the teacher who inspires my child to read every night before bed. #FaceOfLabor #LaborDay (102)
- To the nurse who lovingly cares for my sick mother, thank you. #FaceOfLabor #LaborDay (87)
- #FaceOfLabor: The friendly @UPS driver who picks up & delivers our packages on time. Thank you! #LaborDay (106)
- Thx 2 the scientists at our great universities. Their innovation & creativity helped CA become world’s 8th largest economy. #LaborDay (135)
- #FaceOfLabor: The social worker who makes sure my grandmother doesn’t go w/out her wheelchair & medication. Thanks! #LaborDay (126)
- Thx to the sanitation workers who pick up my trash every Tuesday at 5am w/out fail. #FaceOfLabor #LaborDay (107)
- Thank you to the PG&E power line tech who braved the storm to get my neighborhood’s lights back on. #FaceOfLabor #LaborDay (124)
MHFT ALERT: If you have read to the bottom of this newsletter, please email Theresa Sage at tsmhft@garlic.com by September 4 for a prize! Thanks for taking the time to stay updated and informed!